How to Train Your Daemon
by DeejayMil
Summary: Growing up, there was never any doubt of who the better Viking was. Astrid's daemon was always so much bigger, so much stronger, so much... more. When Toothless settled into a dragon, Hiccup was pretty sure he was doomed. Then whispers came in of a mighty warrior. A real Viking. He promised that anyone could be whoever they wanted to be. The only cost...? Their daemons.
1. Toothless: The Worst Daemon

_AN: For those who are unfamiliar with the His Dark Materials universe, this is basically all you need to know (taken from the wiki)_

 ** _"A dæmon /ˈdiːmən/ is a type of fictional being in the Philip Pullman fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials. Dæmons are the external physical manifestation of a person's 'inner-self' that takes the form of an animal. Dæmons have human intelligence, are capable of human speech—regardless of the form they take—and usually behave as though they are independent of their humans. Pre-pubescent children's dæmons can change form voluntarily, almost instantaneously, to become any creature, real or imaginary. During their adolescence a person's dæmon undergoes "settling", an event in which that person's dæmon permanently and involuntarily assumes the form of the animal which the person most resembles in character. Dæmons and their humans are almost always of different genders."_**

 **.**

 **Chapter One: Toothless: The Worst Daemon Ever**

 **.**

 **.**

He's possibly the worst daemon ever.

For a while, that's what I thought. Now? I have bigger priorities.

The Island of Berk: Home to big Vikings with big daemons and even bigger tempers. If you're not big, you're hardly a Viking at all. You're more of a… well, a Hiccup. On Berk, size matters.

Take my dad, for example. Stoick the Vast, Chieftain of Berk. Titles are given once daemons take the form that best describes the human they belong to. So, no shock there when my dad turned out to be best described as a silvertip bear; nine-hundred pounds of teeth, charming demeanour, and fish-scented-fur. And that's _out_ of armour. Legend has it that between the two of them they crushed a Monstrous Nightmare and then used its body as a battle-axe. Do I believe that?

Yes. Yes I do.

That earned him his title, and her name. Vast.

She's an example of a good daemon.

Then, there are the bad daemons. The sheep. One sheep, actually. No one in Berk had ever had a sheep daemon until Mildew the Meek. Honestly, I thought that anything my daemon settled as would have paled in comparison to _that_ disappointment. A moose. Big? Sure. Intimidating? Yeah, I'll give her that. Practical on a warship? We've got eight torn sails and five fractured collarbones that'll say otherwise. And we've had our fair share of aquatic-bound daemons. It's all fun and games till your daemon settles as a porpoise, and you have to spend the rest of your life at sea.

And then there's my daemon.

He doesn't have a name yet. We haven't earnt that. For him to settle—for me to know who _I'm_ supposed to be—we have to prove ourselves. I've always thought 'prove ourselves' to be a vaguely ominous term with an unsettling amount of speculation, and I'm pretty sure it's a goal that is forever out of our reach.

He doesn't have a name, that's strike one. Strike two; he's a he. Daemons are always the opposite sex of their people. Always. That makes him different, and if there's one thing Berkian's love, it's not being different. Me? I'm different. He's unconditional proof of that.

Three? Oh yeah, there's a third. There's a whole laundry list of reasons why I have the worst daemon ever. Three is—was—that he's _small_. When he wasn't settled, any form he took was on the far side of miniscule and barely a sneeze compared to Vast. Polecats. Hares. Birds. Nothing so big that even I can't carry him. Couldn't carry him. Because, as you'll see, we managed to make this third worst thing even worse.

You know, all those things I could have worked around. He would've settled eventually, daemons always did. I figured he might have even settled as something big if I 'proved myself' in just the right way. Just the right way being if I ever managed to kill one of the thousands of dragons that plague Berk's otherwise unplagued shores. See? I kill a dragon, he settles big, he gets a name – all my problems solved.

I could have worked around all those things if I'd just killed a dragon.

But then he settled.

And I, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, son of Stoick the Vast—mighty Chieftain of Berk with the silvertip bear daemon who can crush skulls with her teeth—now have the dubious honour of being the first Viking in the known history of everything to have a dragon daemon.

A dragon daemon.

Yeah.

There is absolutely one thing I am completely sure of now.

Because of Toothless, I am going to die.


	2. Chapter One: A Plan

**Chapter One: A Plan**

 **.**

 **.**

My daemon is, as always, being _super_ helpful with my plans to make a better life for the both of us.

"You know," I grumble, lugging the heavy wooden net-thrower across the—current decor: on fire—town centre, "you could help. Shift into something, oh I don't know, _useful_."

He says nothing, just peeps happily at a passing Gronkle as some kind of blue songbird perched on the lever of my invention. The Gronkle grunts back, meaty talons wrapped around a glumly baa'ing sheep, and slowly hovers away.

I'm not worried about _him_. Once a Gronkle has food, it ignores everything else, even my ridiculous peeping daemon. No, I'm not worried about him at all.

What I'm more worried about is—

"Look out!" The shout is followed by the resounding sound of something big and cranky trundling in my direction, and I turn reluctantly with my hands sweaty and slipping on the polished wood. _Bother_. I only needed to get it to the cliff, get a good shot at a passing dragon, and problems _solved_ , but no—life has got to throw another hurdle in my direction.

That hurdle leans down to my face and bares its teeth in a wide hello-hungry smile. My daemon squeaks, fluffing his feathers up and trying to look scary. Hey, I never said he was smart. Brave, sure. Smart? Well, supposedly as smart as I am…

And I'm standing in the middle of town barely armed in the middle of a dragon attack right after my dad told me to stay put so, you know.

"Hi, hello," I say to the Monstrous Nightmare as flames flicker along its length. "Good dragon. Good horrifying, about-to-eat-me dragon…"

The fear is real and paralysing. Slinking my hand back to the axe hanging heavy at my belt, I smile up at the dragon. Just… a… little… further…

"Down!" Reflexively, I turn to the call and, reflexively, I get a wolf to the face. Down we go in a flurry of limbs, wood, and fur, jaws snapping terrifyingly close to my face as the wolf huffs. I huff too, as my back hits the ground and shoves all the air from my body, stunned. From nearby, I hear—

 _Astrid_.

At least from here, trapped under the warm weight of her daemon, I get a front row view of her leaping overhead, outlined by the flames, axe in hand.

Another huff and I realize I've been smiling stupidly at her as she swings the axe at the dragon's head, diverting its attention and leaping away just as swiftly. She's grace, Astrid is, not just strength. Speed and agility all mixed into one, and I'm _envious_.

By my ear, my daemon sighs longingly. I look at him. A _rabbit_. Completely with rapidly twitching nose and lop-ears. Chocolate brown. He's sickeningly adorable.

Always there when I need him, my daemon. Looking cool. Looking awesome.

Not.

"Get out of the firing line, scrawny," Astrid's daemon says coolly, slipping from my chest. The cold air hits me twice as hard with his bulk gone. "If you can't fight, go home. Battle is no place for…" He pauses and looks at my daemon, his wide ears folding back and lip curling, "… bunnies."

"In my defence…" Fire rockets overhead and I shout to be heard, dragging the net-thrower out of the smouldering dirt and checking the calibration in the lull as the dragons scatter away from the hordes of bristling Vikings and their bristling daemons charging at them. "… he wasn't a bunny when I started this. He was a… bird. Of some kind. Probably a scary one, I don't know, I'm no bird exp—"

"Hiccup." Turning, flushing, Astrid is standing behind me with her axe on her shoulder and expression haughty. I'm pretty sure she learnt that exact tone she's using from my dad. I can just hear him now: _Hiccup, why are you so small. Why are you so lame. Why are you so_ _ **you**_ _._ "What are you _doing_ out here?"

Helpfully, my daemon picks that moment to point at the net-thrower, even thumping his fluffy little foot to draw her attention right on to him.

She stares at him, gaze shifting to the thrower, and then back to me. By her side, her daemon sidles up, the fur along the nape of his neck and spine raised in a long ridge.

Oh boy.

"Go. Home." She walks away, leaving me standing there, shamed. Sort of shamed.

Only for a little while.

Because I have a _plan_. "Come on," I say to my daemon. "Now we _have_ to kill a dragon. You do understand that right? No messing around, bud. Tonight is the night you settle."

He just twitches his tail and says nothing.

Some daemon.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

The battle is _fierce_ and it's just how I like it. Yeah, this is _living_!

Axe in hand, daemon a mighty wolf by my side, dragons falling before me.

I've got this in the bag.

But, there's a hiccup in the perfection of this night. Notably, a _Hiccup_. The Hiccup.

The dragons come from the east, masking their approach from our daemons using the west-bound winds. They come under the cover of darkness, rolling in with a cloudbank. It's clever. It's crafty.

It's not enough.

We push them back from the sheep-pens and they don't get a single claw into our oxen. The buildings are burning, yeah, sure, whatever, but we can rebuild. We're Vikings. Rebuilding from nothing is in our nature!

We've taken no losses and I intend upon keeping it that way. That means _no_ losses.

Not even Hiccup.

"Uh oh," my daemon says. He's a bear now, all the better for bulk as Fishlegs would say, and his eyes are locked on the path leading up to the cliffs. "Problem, Astrid."

"Do I even need to ask?" Inching out from behind him, I can hear Snotlout hollering in the distance, the twins' wild calls sounding out along him, almost masked by the spitting fizz of the flames they're extinguishing. Fire duty. Which is where I'm supposed to be, but, _honestly_ , I'm more useful with an axe than a bucket, any day.

Unlike Hiccup. Who is most useful when he's home, out of sight, out of mind, along with his mediocre daemon. Who doesn't even have a name yet. I mean, my daemon doesn't have a name yet either, but we all know it's just a matter of time until that changes. I can feel it. He's going to settle soon and settle _big_. Perhaps the biggest. I've earned it. Hiccup? His daemon will probably still be answering to 'bud' when he's thirty.

Annnd, there he goes. Sneaking out _again_. It's like he wants to be dragon chow. There's a shift next to me as my daemon folds down into wolf-shape again, muzzle pointed and eyes keen as he watches Hiccup vanish into the dark of the unlit path, only slightly illuminated by the glow of the burning houses. My daemon is ready to _hunt_. He knows how much I love his wolf form. Swift, cunning, vicious… everything I want to be. He'll be a wolf for sure.

"Should we follow him?" my daemon asks, tail held high and confident. "He's going to get into trouble, and then we'll all cop it from the Chief. And Vast."

As we watch, there's another movement in the shadows. Something tall and pointed, moving swiftly from cover to cover, breaks away from the fight and slips after Hiccup. A _boom_ rumbles overhead, something explodes nearby and casts the village into sharp relief. In that brilliant flash, I see it: A Deadly Nadder. Blue and yellow and covered in spikes, its beak cracked open in a hungry smile.

And after Hiccup.

My daemon rumbles.

"Let's go," I tell him, hefting my axe. The balance is perfect, the blade keen. We're ready. "Someone's gotta save that idiot from himself."

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

The cliff is dark and silent. The world is hushed around us. Even my daemon shuts up, taking the form of a scrawny, ragged furred fox with patches of brown poking through his white fur, tilting his pointed muzzle up at the empty sky.

We've missed our chance.

In a scramble, I'd set up the thrower, checked it all twice, aimed.

And… nothing.

Once again, we've missed our chance. Guess that's just our luck.

Biting back my disappointment, I can hear cheers from behind me. The village, celebrating their win over the dragons. "Yay," I add softly, kneeling next to my invention with one hand resting on the wood and trying not to let it sting _too_ much.

A soft bump on my elbow. My daemon. He pushes close, pressing his fluffy forehand against my arm, and I can't help but smile despite… everything. Despite knowing that this is probably the last dragon attack of the season, despite knowing that this was supposed to be our night and now it's just… a night. Another night of Hiccup being Hiccup, doing _nothing_ of use.

"It's alright, bud," I tell him quietly, my mute, mediocre daemon, because it's not his fault he was formed saddled to _me_. He really is quite clever, even though he's small, even though he's silent. He… deserves more. "Next time, hey?" But everything I feel, he feels too, and his ears are low and his eyes downcast.

I stand. Lean down to pick up my invention, shoulders bowed and—he growls. I tense.

He _never_ growls. It's not just a usual growl either. It's an intent growl, a _look at that_ growl, and I follow his gaze to the midnight horizon.

There.

A flicker across the stars. I have to blink and wipe my eyes to be sure I saw anything at all, it's moving so fast. So… impossibly fast.

"Night Fury!" I gasp, shock and fear thundering through me. The deadliest of all dragons. No one has _ever_ killed one, not in the history of Vikings ever. I look at my daemon. He flickers, eyes glinting, and grows. A wolf. Not a big wolf, gangly and all legs and rough black fur, but he's as tall as my chest and his growl carries. "We're gonna be the first, aren't we, bud?" I ask, and he growls again, lips pulling back over long fangs.

This is it. Our chance.

A _wolf_ daemon. Perfect.

It takes a second to aim, to skim the skies. The Night Fury is doing a loop, coming back… if I listen for the sound of its shot charging…

There's no sound for a long moment except for our soft breathing, the crash of waves below, and—

There. A whistle.

It's almost automatic, swinging the thrower towards it but—no. Aim _ahead_ of the sound.

I do. And I fire.

And it hits.

The dragon howls, a furious snarl that's echoed by my daemon's bark of glee. It falls, crashing into the forest below in a tumble of black wings and scales barely lit by the moon, and I watch it fall with my heart trying to throw itself out of my mouth and shock surging through my body.

"Yeah!" I shout, leaping up, _thrilled_ , "That's it, bud, we did it!" My daemon barks again, bounding forward, and that's when we're attacked.

He yelps and I've sprinted ahead, but it feel it anyway when the dragon smacks into him. It's a shock—like having something reach deep inside my body and claw at my very self, and I buckle instantly. I'm not looking at him, not yet, but I shout with him as he sprawls with the dragon on top.

Spinning, I reach for the knife at my hip. Dragons never attack daemons.

They _never_ attack daemons. It's a fundamental rule of life. Daemons attack dragons—this one has it backwards!

The Deadly Nadder staggers up, my daemon snapping at his belly, one clawed talon on his flank. It turns its head, peers at me. Its tail flicks, a warning.

Uh oh.

It wasn't attacking my daemon.

It's after _me._

I dive right as the spikes hurtle over my head. I have… a knife. A knife and a mute daemon. Oh, I can just hear dad now. 'Oh yah, I had a son. Skinny thing. Tried to kill a Nadder with a knife. We buried what was left of him in one of my shoes.'

Oh boy.

Nadders are fast, fast as heck, but they're not smart. I lie still and hear it stalk towards me, talons clicking on the rock. Knife in hand.

Guess this is it.

My daemon growls again and the sound is loud. Deep. Rumbling.

That's… not my daemon.

I roll over right as Astrid hurtles once more from the darkness, her daemon at her side, swinging her axe wildly at the Nadder as it leaps back and back, towards the cliff, tail up. She lands a blow, the axe glancing from the dragon's tough hide and leaving a long dark wound on the pale surface.

"Watch out for the spikes!" I shout, seeing it about to fire moments before it does, and my daemon lashes out with snapping jaws and grabs Astrid's ankle. She hits the ground, _hard_ , and I wince as the spikes slash through the air where she had been moments before. Axe skittering away, it clatters against the Nadder's talons and the dragon roars, mantles its wings, and springs into the air, still roaring. Beserking. _Great_.

But it doesn't attack. It wheels away, towards the village. Towards the celebrating Vikings with no idea that there's one really, _really_ angry dragon heading their way.

"No, damnit!" Astrid shouts, kicking out, and both my daemon and I yelp as her foot connects with his muzzle. He shrinks instantly, becoming a cat that hisses and curls back defensively, tail lashing. "Hiccup! Why do you have to mess everything up? I had a clear shot! Your stupid, useless daemon!"

That's not fair. He _saved_ her. "Hey, if it wasn't for him, you'd be a pincushion right now," I snap, angry and still shaking from that close call. "Look, we gotta—"

"Warn the village," she says, turning and looking down. "He's heading for the hall! The babies are in there, and the best stock. If we lose that, winter will be…"

Deadly.

But… the dragon I hit. The Night Fury. If I go with her… Dad will _never_ believe me. "Wait, I have to go, I—" She's already halfway down the path, turning back while still moving to shoot me an incredulous look. "I shot a Night Fury, Astrid! A real Night Fury. The two of us, we can both go—"

"This isn't the time for your fantasies, Hiccup!" she calls back, breaking into a sprint. "This is real!"

And she's gone, her daemon darting ahead. Quick as the wind. I'm not worried—she'll beat the dragon there almost for sure.

I could go. I _should_ go. It's not my fault the dragon got the jump on me but…

Astrid thinks it is. And she'll tell Dad, and honestly, anything that goes wrong is always somehow relatable to me. It's like… in the _Handbook of Having a Disappointing Son_ , I think.

"Do we go alone after a Night Fury?" I ask my daemon. He's quivering, but not with fear. I can feel it thrumming through him, an anger I'm not letting myself savour. If Astrid would just _listen_ … "Yeah. That's what I thought. Let's go."

The forest is dark, but a Vikings gotta do what a Vikings gotta do.

Even a small Viking.

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

The rest of the village is in the town centre. All I have to do is get within shouting distance before the dragon can fly down there and rocket a blast right into the centre of their unsuspecting group.

So I run.

Lungs screaming, legs pumping, the path flickers by under me in a blur of stone and dirt. My daemon sprints ahead, a wolf, but the form is big and not fast enough.

Hiccup. He's small, but he's fast. And his daemon is faster.

"Go small!" I shout, pushing myself harder, leaping from a ridge, the village _right there_ in front of me and the shadow of the dragon weaving above. We're not going to make it. My daemon glances back, nods, and _flickers_.

I stumble because the world skipped in that moment. Breathless. That's it. But I can't stop to think about it because my daemon is racing away, an impossibly quick white blur in the dark, and I can feel him pulling, pulling, the distance between us _hurting_ as I stagger to keep up. Faster faster with my eyes tearing up and my heart hammering, and it hurts it hurts so much—

"Dragon! Dragon at the hall!" I hear him shout, and throw myself closer, knees slamming into the stone, scrambling, axe lost somewhere along the way. Then the world bursts into light and sounds around me and I'm in the town centre, surrounded by armed Vikings rushing towards the sound of the dragon roaring, and my daemon is hunched over, gasping for air, his white sides heaving and long ears pressed back against his spine.

I crumple next to him, eyes closed, just trying to… _breathe._

"Good job," I wheeze, when I can think to talk, and smile helplessly. We _did_ it. We damn well did it. Hah! Fastest in the village! Better than—

"Astrid!" Mamma is staring at me. I stand, evening my breathing out, still grinning. "Your daemon!"

"He was fantastic! Did you see how fast he ran!" I gloat, giddy with success, hearing a cheer come up from the hall. _Astrid saves the day!_

Wait, where's Hiccup?

I glance around for him, but Mamma is still talking.

"No, no, Astrid, honey… your _daemon_."

I look at him now and that weird feeling in my chest kicks again.

Oh.

 _Oh._

"Oh ho, congratulations Astrid!" my father is booming, grabbing me in a hug, his wolf daemon bounding around my daemon in wide excited circles. "Looks like we're going to be having a naming rite before winter after all!" Mamma just looks… shocked. Her own daemon stands by her side. Wolves. We have wolves. The Hoffersons _always_ have wolves.

But he's a…

"I'm a hare," my daemon says, standing slowly and staring at me all wide eyed and blinking and fluffy and _white_ , looking just like Hiccup when he's been caught doing something stupid and _weak_. "Why am I a… hare?"

"This isn't right," I say, but they're all talking now, talking over me, and no one can hear me. "This isn't right."

But no one is listening.

He's settled as a hare and hares are _weak_.

So what does that make me?

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

Good thing about my daemon's cat paws on the forest floor… he's silent.

I'm absolutely not.

"You know, the forest would be grand if it wasn't for all the trees," I mutter, another branch swinging out of nowhere to whip painfully across my cheek. "Don't mind me, just walking through a darkened forest, surrounded by trees, looking for a… _dragon_."

The furrow is long, the ground churned up by a powerful thrashing body and littered with foliage the dragon had dragged down with it. There's a pile of dirt and ground agitated at the end of the scrape… but no dragon. My daemon bounces over to it, endlessly curious with his plumy tail high, and _churrs_ as he peers within the deep gouge. I follow, mouth dry, hands wet, and crouch beside him.

Empty. Except for the shredded remains of my bolas and netting.

"Uhhh, bud, I think we should—" I say, standing and turning and find myself face to face with a snarling Night Fury. "Ah. Hello, there."

Silence. The creature's muzzle is twisted upwards, green eyes slitted with anger and black scales muddied. Its wings arch above its long body, tail lashing. It's not hurt. Not even a little.

And all I have is a knife.

"Good dragon," I say, stepping back and tripping over the furrow. The fall is short, shocking, and for the second time in an hour, I'm winded; on my back in the dirt gasping for air as the sky vanishes above me to be replaced with the gaping black maw of a furious dragon, bright plasma beginning to build in the back of its throat as it readies the shot. From nearby, I can hear my daemon shrieking in fear; shrieking at first, a cat's terrified cry, then barking, snarling, braying. Flickering from form to form to form trying to find one that will stay the dragon's fatal blast.

Well. I guess it's a better way to die than shot full of a Nadder's needles.

There's a loud crunch nearby. The dragon leaps away with a spitting hiss of shock, but I can hear its paws on the grass as it circles, still hissing.

The hissing stops.

There's a long moment where I consider just lying there in that furrow, spending the rest of my life in a ditch. It would surprise no one, really.

But I'm a Viking.

And Vikings don't die lying down. Not even Hiccups.

I stand. There's a Night Fury in front of me, as dirt showers from my clothes. I stare it down and it looks back with dark diluted pupils, blinking. Another crunch behind me and its gaze snaps away. So does mine, turning my head awkwardly to avoid losing sight of the—

Other Night Fury. The one that's half curled around the trunk of a tree, its wings low and eyes wide with surprise. Staring at the dragon in front of me, the dragon that's not a dragon at all.

I look at my daemon. He opens his mouth, the plasma glinting within, and growls warningly at the other Night Fury. With a startled rumble, it bounds catlike away, leaping into the air and vanishing with a whistling rush of impacted air. The plasma vanishes. He settles back, muzzle smug, and beams at me.

It's insane. Impossible.

Daemons don't shift to dragons.

 _Impossible._

But I hold out my hand, scrambling out of the ditch, kneeling in front of him. It's _him_. I know him like I know myself. I'd know him even if he was standing in a horde of other Night Furies. It's him and… he's… something inside us, something deep inside us, it settles. Shifts and clicks in, like the final turn on a stubborn bolt.

"Bud?"

He leans forward and bumps his huge snout against my outstretched hand, pressing it against my palm. And we stay like that for one long, lingering moment, just looking at each other.

"We're so screwed," I whisper finally, and my _big_ dragon daemon nods, yellow-green eyes narrowed in worry.

Vikings _kill_ dragons. They don't… they _aren't_ dragons. Daemons reflect what we are and what I am, visible for _everyone_ to see now…

I'm the enemy.


End file.
